Rest & Recuperation
by Curiously Strong
Summary: It's been a rough tour for our tortured Sergeant. What will happen during his much deserved R&R? Will he really be able to kick back and relax or is home the same sh't with a little less sand? End of a Sgt. Scream trilogy, feedback welcome.
1. North Bellmore, NY

Call it the end of the trilogy; call it a continuation, whatever. I started **_Al-Hadith Hilton_** because I wanted to explain the scene in 'Embedded' where Sgt. Scream gives away his phone card when he can't quite find the intestinal fortitude to make a call. Who didn't he call? Why? Why the face? He'll walk the length of a frigging town being shot at by people who'll carve a notch in their lipstick case when they off him to get Smoke out of trouble but a five minute phone call is too much? Below you'll find my take, also known as the loose end tier that I didn't dare title Scream Goes to America because I have better sense than that.

* * *

******North Bellmore, NY - 4:00 A.M.**

The air smelled like coffee and leather conditioner. His skin wasn't coated in thin layer of chalky sand. The interior temperature of the car he was riding was just right in fact, barring the NPR broadcast on food shortages in Nigeria, the inside of the pimped out '78 Continental was actually bearable. So this was home.

Staff Sergeant Silas had arrived at La Guardia via Baltimore only minutes earlier surprisingly relaxed for a man who'd spent the past twenty hours aboard three different planes. An auspicious computer glitch had bumped him to first class just out of Kuwait and a sympathetic stewardess with a son in the British Army's Special Forces kept him on milk and cookies on the London-Baltimore leg of his flight where he'd also been introduced to the wonders of a fully flat sleeper seat, noise canceling headphones standard to each station and a practically endless DVD library including seasons three and four of the Sopranos which he had skimmed back to back.

At 4:41 A.M. New York time, Dean Brody, friend and current tenant turned into the driveway of Silas' house. His greeting at the airport had been something of a low-key puppy-made-a-mess-in-the-sofa and Brody, retired infantryman and current truckie for ladder 35 waited until Silas was out of the car before letting on why.

"I kinda let it slip to Vivian you might be in town this week. I'm sorry man, you know this place; news was like a brush fire."

"She'll be working till five," Chris said trying optimism on for size.

"Yeah, about that," Dean added shifting to first, "Lula gave her the week."

"Goddamnit Dean."

"It's a warm body man," he offered revving the engine. "Breakfast at Marybill after my shift? Moran's covering; I got another couple hours left."

"Sure." Silas tapped the roof of the car and watched the Bellmore Fire Department sticker on the bumper get smaller as Dean sped out of the driveway.

Silas turned around, duffel in hand to admire his house. How many landlords out there could count on a comfortable bed in their tenant's basement on no more than a day's notice and free of charge? The place was typical North Bellmore meaning birdhouse-like construction of PVC siding, narrow porch, a detached one car garage, and unless one of Dean's many live-in girlfriends had had her way, a very large, garish hot tub facing the wood deck in the back yard.

Curtains rustled in the window and the front door flew open signaling the end of quiet reflection. Silas found himself halfway to the porch when 117 pounds of blonde latched on to his neck. It was a photo-op like no other: soldier in a pressed Class A uniform assaulted by fluffy blonde welcoming him home. It was weird, he thought, tagging a high school sweetheart with a term like 'fluffy blonde.'

"Oh baby, I was so happy when Dean said you called him to get a ride from the airport! I know you probably wanted to surprise me at work but I couldn't wait so long to see you. Are you mad at me for ruining your surprise baby? Oh I've missed you so much!" It was a barrage of high pitched joy. Silas waited until an appropriate length of time had passed before he began the process of unlatching the blonde.

"Why don't we go inside?"

"I am making your favorite for dinner baby, baked ziti! I have the _whole_ week off to wait on you hand _and_ foot. We are going to have so much fun baby." Vivian closed the door.

The unjustly demonized thirties had been treating her with kid gloves. Vivian remained trim, pretty, perky, mostly bright and still, he couldn't get over how all it had managed to grate in two minutes flat. Silas had stopped reading her letters long before Sophie, before Jamila. He had most of a year's worth of her chatter unread in a shoebox in Iraq and no way to end the verbal downpour at hand. He heard the word 'ziti' for the third time and wondered how pasta could be so relevant. It was the same when he called her; Vivian's incessant natter, struggling to fill dead air exacerbated by the satellite phone's transmission delays when silence would have sufficed; ziti, ziti, ziti hammering his temple then her hands on his belt. Silas held both her wrists at an arm's length.

"I think you should go home."

"But…"

"I _just _got here."

"Baby," she cooed attempting to resume her ministrations, "I know it's been a long time. I don't care about me okay? I want to make you feel good. It's okay if…"

"I want to be alone Vivian." His tone was harsher than he would have liked but it got the point across. The screen door slammed into its frame.

Outside Vivian Moretti lit her last Parliament and tried to disappear in her tiny knit cardigan wondering what she was doing cold and by herself on this particular side of the wall. She had spent the whole night washing, waxing, curling and exfoliating her anatomy in preparation for Chris' impeding arrival and now he was inside and she was outside, smoking, trying not cry and way behind schedule if she was to send him back to Iraq in two weeks with his grandmother's diamond solitaire safely around the ring finger of her left hand. She heard the clickety clack of dress shoes on the basement stairs and decided to go home to recoup. No man who spent two years around hairy, smelly women in a glorified sandbox could ignore Miss Triborough First Runner-up forever.

* * *

I couldn't resist a shout out to my pimpmobile. It's not quite as gorgeous as I imagined it for this little write up coz it still needs a lot of cosmetic work but I just love my gas guzzler and I needed to share that. I'm one of those people who name their cars you see.

Thy Author.


	2. Feeding Time

Here's Chapter Two.

* * *

**680 Virginia Avenue - 11:00 A.M.**

Silas shed his uniform before breakfast in favor of heavy work boots and drab bluish pants, the loose fitting, wrinkle resistant kind designed to survive small children and nuclear warfare. Jamila's scarf was wrapped around his neck under a charcoal, hooded jacket thus breaking up an outfit that might otherwise look torn from a Dickies catalog. After long deployments, he always found it better to ease back into clothing that wasn't cut from the same length of fabric nor meant to camouflage its wearer. Idiosyncratic rituals 101. The diner's door dinged closed behind him.

"Let me get the keys," he said to Dean going around to the driver's side. He caught the Hawaiian hula girl by her plastic grass skirt, slipped behind the wheel and backed out of the parking lot with no trouble getting back into New York driving mode. "A radio that sings!" Delight crept into his voice. He turned up the volume and let the ominous build up for the fourth verse of White Rabbit fill the air.

The way back was short at less than five miles and quick several hours removed from people scrambling to get to work or school or the gym. Chris looked around bewildered by suburbia. The lay-out wasn't all that different from some of the neighborhoods he'd cleared in Iraq. He could feel Dean's eyes boring into the side of his head and he wondered if perhaps he hadn't been as inconspicuous as he first thought in making sure the shadow around the corner of that one house was had really been a shrub and that soccer ball on the gutter was _just_ a soccer ball. Dean looked away recognizing his own behavior six months earlier, flipped the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and dipped lower in the passenger's seat as the car nosed into the driveway.

Vivian was waiting for them, sitting on the curb with a very large coffee mug in her hand. She'd since ruined her outfit's feminine look by adding an unflattering goose down parka and rubber galoshes to her sundress but with three vodka tonics in her bloodstream –she liked them heavy on the vodka and very, very easy on the tonic, girly was the last thing on her mind. She trudged through the grass oblivious to the sprinklers or the inherent danger of sneaking up on wired men who found neck snapping an easy task.

"I need an answer right now." Then hem of Vivian's coat encroached on Silas' personal space. She didn't bother to bring him up to speed on the conversation that had already played out in her head choosing instead to focus on the frayed curl floating in her drink.

"Are you drunk Vivian?" Dean pulled hear arm spilling some of the vodka in the mug. It was cheap and smelled like it.

"I am 29," she continued still sober enough to lie about her age. "I can't keep waiting for you to propose unless to me Christopher you can question my answer."

"Come on, let's go inside." Chris took the mug from her hand. Vivian followed sheepishly and Dean, resigned, started toward the garage to procure his car washing paraphernalia while the issue of the disgruntled drunk was resolved safely out of earshot.

Vivian sank into a kitchen chair with a sigh. She tugged at her galoshes and gave up, choosing to work on the bulky coat instead. Chris moved along the counter looking for filters and clean mugs in a kitchen organized by a man so that location and common sense were not two concepts folded into the scheme. He stopped the search, washed the filter sitting in the coffeemaker, poured new grounds and refilled the water tank. Steam crackled as the coffee brewed but he waited for Vivian to finish the first third of her cup until he took the second chair.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier."

"It's okay."

"No. It isn't."

"I didn't want it to be this way but I need to know if you are ever going to marry me Christopher. We have been going back and forth for over fifteen years and you keep leaving and coming back and leaving again and I don't think that's fair. I can't be 29 forever." Vivian had not meant to crack a joke and Chris had the good sense not to laugh.

"Viv, you were married when I left."

"Yeah but I divorced Jimmy. I told you in my letter! He was nothing. It's always been you baby." Her voice was gooey honey. She covered his hands with hers. Chris pulled them free and stirred his coffee.

"I don't…" She cut in before he could confess his lax reading habits when her name was on the envelope.

"But I read you letter baby, the one you sent me in March!" Vivian reached for the parka in the floor and dived in looking for pockets. She emerged holding a folded sheet of notebook paper covered in manly chicken scratch. "I cried when I read the part about us being together like the ducks." She pushed the evidence to his side. Exhibit number one. Chris paled. Being together like the ducks?

"Vi, I meant, that was about a documentary on wild ducks. PBS sent a bunch of movies last year and one of them was about the ducks but that's it; just the ducks. I didn't have anything to talk about so I thought maybe you'd wanna know about the ducks." Her nails bent in half without breaking as she gripped her mug tighter. "They're really cool," Chris added "you know the ones with the green heads are all males. The females are brown." He stopped himself.

"I thought you were using a metaphor. I showed my sister and she laughed at me but I didn't care because I thought you were…"

"I'm sorry."

"I just want you to give me a chance Chris. A real chance you know not just ten minutes before you have to run back to whatever dump the Army decides they have to send you."

"Viv, I wasn't… I've slept with other women and…"

"Did you keep pictures of all of them?" She interrupted. The cynicism in her voice was a departure on the earlier honey. She put Jamila's crumpled picture, ripped in half almost edge to edge, on the table next to the letter. "That's a _hajji_," she seethed. The military slang for Iraqi locals was corrosive in her mouth. "An _Arab_," she went on splitting Arab into a two syllable word. A-rab.

"Where did you get that?" The edge in his voice matched the Vivian's coldness.

"Dean gave me spares last year," she replied jingling the keys, "for emergencies."

"Her name is Jamila and she hasn't been to Mecca so no, she's not a _hajji_," he said taking the keys she put on the table. Vivian's nostrils flared. He hadn't even tried to deny it.

"It's okay. It's okay." She got up for more coffee. "You are a man. You have needs. We can work this out. Those women didn't mean anything to you right? Right?" He looked away, not interested in explaining what if anything he'd felt with Sophie or Jamila or the meaning to any of it in his mind.

"You don't find it strange that we've known each other since we were little and it's never worked out? Are you okay with that?" He asked. He wanted to slap her when she answered sweetly changing from Venus to Medusa and back faster than he could blink.

"But it's always been with your bags packed! It's going to be different this time. You'll have a _real_ job in Anthony's store in Kansas and I can teach anywhere in the country. Baby, I was looking at real estate in Topeka and you can buy a house just like this one or even better for less than $150,000. If you sell this place to those people from Manhattan that offered a half mil, that's over $350,000 dollars. Can you imagine all the things we could do with that much money?"

Chris pushed the table so hard the chair opposite his fell backwards, slammed against the door and bounced back two feet. Vivian backed into the counter enthralled by the way he leapt to his feet to stand inches from her face. His features turned hard, his anger visible in the veins bulging under the skin. To Vivian, the moment proved cathartic. All the unladylike resentment she'd been trying to control surged forth like pea soup from Linda Blair's mouth.

"You renewed your contract didn't you baby?" She taunted. "You are not even man enough to break-up with me. You just keep reenlisting hoping I give up don't you?" Silas made his hands into fists and pumped them open then closed trying to get a grip on rage that would kill her if it went unchecked.

He drew in a shallow, raspy breath. Vivian laughed. She continued laughing even as one of his hands covered the bottom half of her face hard enough to mash her lips against her teeth. She tasted blood in her mouth and a little high-pitched voice in her head began grasping through the layers of bitterness and alcohol trying to tell her she should be scared. The little voice wasn't loud enough. As soon as the pressure of his hand loosened she started laughing and taunting him again. Chris tried to shake the images in his head, the loud, sick wheezing coming from Moffet's headless corpse as it went on trying to scream for half a minute until it, no, he died, the very sound of an RPG round piercing the chopper in al-Hudaba; Captain Harms.

He felt the hot, antsy tingling of blood under his skin spreading down the back of his neck to his arms and legs. Jerusalem's death played back in his head like gruesome news bulletin scattered with Vivian's mocking laughter. He stepped back in a dizzy haze as he relived the moment for the hundredth time; praying he could forget the way Jerusalem's skin stuck to his uniform when she reached for his hand and her cries as Lieutenants Berro and Glass sliced open her arms to reduce the pressure on her arteries before what little morphine she'd been given had a chance to kick in.

That wasn't _real_?

"You're not going to hit me Chrissy?" Vivian shoved him hard enough to bruise, wanting a reaction, regardless of how bad for her health it might be. He didn't disappoint.

Her head thudded in response, against the cabinet doors where he pinned her by the throat. The tips of her toes scrambled for something more than the air beneath them. He looked up at her bared teeth outlined in blood from the cut in the inside of her lips so that the lower canines appeared much longer. The effect wasn't flattering; it reminded him of hyenas at feeding time in the Bronx Zoo.

"You can't get away from the tree can you? What's wrong baby? You can't handle the truth?" The jumbled moan that escaped Silas' throat was fuel for Vivian.

After fifteen years of playing nice, she was too dumb with fury to realize how close she'd come to a sordid little headline in the Herald about death by strangulation, and in her prime, tsk, tsk what a shame. After being second fiddle to every assignment, every deployment, to everyone and their dog, she wanted blood and again, she was left staring at the back of his head as he walked away. She ran to the door.

"Don't walk away from me you fucking bastard. Jimmy was three marriages that ended to be with you!" She yelled. "After fifteen fucking years you can't think of anything better to talk to me about than some fucking dumb ass ducks? You are _worse_ than your daddy. At least he fought in _Nam_; you haven't even been to a _real_ war!"

Unlike the front door, the kitchen's opened out and far from fizzing Vivian's tirade became louder as Chris got further away. In the back porch, concealed by the door Dean put out his cigarette on an ashtray in the windowsill. His eyes stopped on the sticker in one of the glass panes, a Vietnam War service ribbon alongside a decal with the familiar black and white outline of a man's profile that honored those taken as prisoners or missing in action. He remembered the night it went up in 1988, when Christopher Silas Senior was indefinitely committed for treatment by the state of New York.

Dean shook his head. He kicked the door closed on Vivian's face and listened for her startled protest, galoshes skidding on linoleum then the clunky, flat thud of her butt hitting the floor.

"Viv, has anyone ever told you how fucking ignorant you sound when you say _Nam_ like you were there?"

* * *

Phew. I had a really hard time with this chapter because as it usually goes, that brilliant idea that sounded so great has so many holes on paper that Swiss cheese looked baby's butt smooth by comparison. Someone reassure me with or without a lollipop please. You know, I think the root of all this has to do with the fact that my mom never let me have a puppy when I was small and so I had to walk my cousin instead. You mean _you_ don't see the parallels. Phooey.

Oh yeah and that _was_ a shout out to my keychain. She wiggles her hips and everything!

Thy Author.


	3. Catholic Guilt

If later on you find yourself wondering, tres leches is a great dessert that everyone from Mexico to Puerto Rico claims as their own. It is so good; I have a pair of pants rendered useless by its rich, gooey goodness. Mmmm.

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**A Pub for Old Friends or a Place to Meet New Ones - 3:00 P.M.**

Dean Brody poked his head inside O'Leary's Pub and smiled. It'd been a while since the recording of a pump action Remington chambering a shell had replaced the more traditional ding-dong of bells announcing incoming customers in other establishments but it never failed to bring a smile to his face. The dark, cozy interior of 2913 Merrick Road was quiet in the afternoon slump evidenced in a bored busboy mopping the floor and the bartender adding lunch receipts at the far end of the counter. The latter looked up from the account book and gave him an easy smile.

"Seen any brooding Italians here today?"

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns." She nodded toward the pool tables in the back. The thwack of a cue striking politically incorrect, ivory balls just out of view served as corroboration. Dean looked at his wristwatch.

"Pam, babe, is the kitchen closed?"

"You know the answer to that, _babe_." Her fingers flying over the calculator keys never slowed down. Dean bent in a mock beggar's crouch.

"Pamela Louise O'Leary, I am a hopeless bonehead. I will never again refer to you in terms of endearment shared by any talking pigs fictional or otherwise. Now, may I _please_ get some cheese fries?"

"I'll see what I can do for you." She gave him a playful smile and stashed the account books out of sight. Dean looked at the menu on a chalkboard above the bar.

"Let me get a beef burrito and um Belgian waffles, extra whipped cream. Brisket on sourdough, the large. And a couple of beers. Oh yeah and fix up a couple patty melts for my man. Apple pie if you have any, two or three slices should do."

"I have some plates you can eat too."

"You are a doll Pam." He rapped a drum-roll on the bar and blew her a kiss.

Dean navigated between empty tables as Pamela disappeared behind swinging doors into the kitchen. O'Leary's was older than time, operated by the same family since way back when prices were reasonable, politicians were honest and Bellmore looked down its nose at yuppies priced out of downtown Manhattan; so old in fact that the back room now filled with dart boards, a jukebox and three pool tables had once been a sitting area for women to enjoy their lager when coed drinking turned heads in New York.

"You _still _can't play pool to save your life," he said stopping a billiard ball's progress on the felt tabletop.

"Fuck off Dean."

"I'm hungry so I'll make this short." Silas tore his eyes from the chalk holder in his hand. "I met this girl at the veteran's center in Brooklyn. You look like you could use her card." In tried and true male fashion, the conversation was directed at the billiard balls. Silas' answer was wordless but nonetheless expressive.

"Dude, it's three o'clock and you are alone, playing pool in a bar. You are bad country song." Point made. "She knows this great Puerto Rican bodega, best tres leches in the _state_. R train gets you there."

Silas played mediocre pool for twenty minutes. For someone with his superb depth perception, he really was bad at it but then fear of bundling a shot never kept him from the game; everyone had to suck at something. Pamela emerged from the kitchen in a cloud of appetizing food smells. She unloaded the food in front of Dean, put the bill by his fork and went back to the books.

"Was she always like that?" Chris sat down in front of his patty melt. He picked up the burger. Patty was a misnomer. It made a half pound of beef sound dainty.

"Who? Vivian?"

"Yup," he replied through a mouthful of cheesy meat.

"Yeah, she's an eejit."

"Only thirty years to notice."

"There's a lot I'd forgive a woman with a rack like that," Dean said chasing the mixture of beef burrito and brisket in his mouth with a swallow of beer, endearing even to women despite his daunting lack of tact. They ate quietly letting all the artery clogging trans fats in their fries go to work coating healthy arteries, bringing about doom. Dean soaked up Worcester sauce with a waffle crust and the world at large cringed in disgust.

"Are you gonna go see him?" Him needed no further identifiers in not so casual dialogue. Him was Christopher Silas Senior and subtleties of inflection were enough to surmise that. Chris shrugged and shook his head at the same time, a greater feat of coordination than many would have guessed.

"No point. He doesn't know who I am anymore; it just makes him angry at the nurses." The real unsung heroes he thought. The latest had lasted eight years when most never made it a week. His fork hovered above flaky pie crust. "Did she really divorce Jimmy because of something I said?" He stabbed the center of the slice making apple compote ooze from the sides.

"Don't flatter yourself dude." Dean snorted annoyed. "Are you just gonna play with that? I could _eat_ it." Silas pushed the plate across the table and dunked the fork in his empty beer mug. "Jimmy's gay. Came out on Valentine's day."

"Jesus."

"You are not like him you know."

"I still would've snapped her neck." Chris said without missing a beat.

"You wouldn't and you didn't. You took a walk. When did your father ever do that?"

"I know exactly how hard I'd have to hit her head against the wall." Teeth were visible but not as anything that could be called a smile.

"Oh God, what is it you Catholics and guilt? I'm fucking Irish and you _still_ fucking win. Pam, honey, can I get some more of that pie?"

"Nope." She didn't look up from the tally sheets.

"Awww come on love I'm eating for two here." He pointed at Silas. Pamela's look wasn't a nice one but then Dean never failed to finish enough food for a small army and fit into a 30 inch waist pair of jeans that looked painted on. She fetched the leftover pie from the kitchen and watched him take the whole tray back to the table.

"Look, Vivian's bitter because her life hasn't worked out." Dean snapped his fingers like he was calling a dog, trying to remember a specific fact. "Projecting, that's what it's called. She would have tried to fight Gandhi's diaper so if you are going to pay attention to her shit, you are fucked."

"Are you watching Oprah or something? I sure as hell don't remember you this damn Dear Abby." Silas scratched his head. Dean answered between mouthfuls of apple pie.

"Nothing burns in this damn place. Best educated emergency response personnel in three boroughs." While not exactly true, Dean preferred that response to a confession that he found Psychology Today a real page turner. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a business card. Angela Cruz, job title, alphabet soup of credentials, address in the Bronx, contact number. "I gotta split, pick up Niecy from swim class. You mind walking home?"

"No prob."

"You'll talk to someone before you run off with Vivian 'cause you feel guilty right?" If looks could kill. "Give her a call." Dean patted the business card. "_Great_ tres leches."

* * *

Hi Pam! Monkey see, monkey do.This little monkey is a lil' latejumping on the shout out bus though.


	4. Tres Leches

And now without further ado, drum-rolls or ticker tape: the conclusion to **_Rest & Recuperation_**. As always, Bianca, thank you for vetting I couldn't do it without you.

**Bethlehem Gardens Nursing Home - 9:25 A.M.**

Boredom had been a deciding factor in the impromptu visit to Bethlehem Gardens. Chris hadn't bothered to check what time it was when he decided to stop turning around on the sleeper sofa and dedicate his time to more productive endeavors. A punishing six mile run on a very expensive rat wheel, weight lifting, shoe shining, clothes pressing, comics reading, real porn that needn't be disguised in old Deer Hunter tapes; that sort of thing.

Had he looked it up, he might have found it amusing that the name of his father's assisted living community was the root of the word bedlam: a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion. It wasn't apparent in the manicured lawns, artificial ponds full of fat ducks pecking at koi fish or the staff in their stark white uniforms stalking the grounds like an army of Good Humor men had been loosed on the elderly and infirm.

He'd been turning heads all morning decked in dark dress pants, a striped shirt with all the in, earthy colors of fall, a leather jacket tailored to enhance the visually appealing line of broad shoulders, narrow hips and a square jaw and shod in handmade, square toe Forzieri oxfords that never failed get noticed by any woman old enough to buy her own booze. Heady with the stench of hospital smells, Silas was glad to see the Nurse Crawford divest some of the attention she was lavishing on the exact consistency of her neighbor's uterine polyps to his presence in the long term care wing.

"How may I help you?" She asked in a tone meant to discourage any request that might in fact require any.

"I am looking for First Se, Christopher Silas," he corrected himself. "I can't find him in his regular room." A look between terror and dislike clouded the woman's face at the mention of Silas Senior. She hung up the phone and stood up.

"And you are?"

"Related," he replied deadpan, ticked off by everything in the nurse's demeanor.

"I am afraid Mr. Silas cannot receive visitors due to his schedule. I'm sorry for the inconvenience." She looked from Silas' set jaw and back to her computer screen and realized he wasn't going away. "He was moved to room 313 in September. Give me a minute. I'll show you in."

"That's okay sweetheart, I can count all the way up to ten now!" He walked down the squeaky hallway and had his first pleasant thought of the day. At least nurse Crawford wasn't a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Silas had staked out the third floor while he waited. Even numbered rooms were on the right, odd on the left with ten rooms on each side of the elevators. He was halfway down the hall before it struck him that he had no idea what he was doing or why. The last time he'd seen his father, the Red Sox were still cursed and New York's skyline sported twin towers instead of tribute lights. The door to 313 was ajar and he knew the racket inside had nothing to do with his father's roommate who had been in a diabetic coma since Watergate was current events.

He stood before the door to 313 and his defenses evaporated. The noise seeping out turned back the clock to his life twenty years earlier; to all the nights he'd bunked with Dean to get away from the bloody noses, split lips and black eyes across the street in his house. He felt all of twelve when he stepped inside, no bronze star, no 'V' for valor, no service ribbons, no purple heart. Like every time he tried to call, he was tongue tied.

The homegrown diabetic beeped quietly in the first bed attached to a web of light wires like one of those science fair exhibits where fourth graders tried to grill a hotdog by hooking the ends to a 9-volt battery. The morale corkboard above the man's bed was a morbid timeline chock full of different relatives playing with the family turnip at various stages of his old age. His father's morale board had one card, _condolences on your wife's recent passing_. It was dated April 1, 1994. Two orderlies were busy holding him down while a third hovered near the headboard with a safety razor at the ready and a can of shaving cream under one arm. Silas Senior had been secured to the bed with soft restraints on both wrists and one ankle. The left thigh stump flung wildly. It took Chris three attempts to speak loud enough to be heard.

"Excuse me." The Good Humor man in charge of facial hair turned around.

"Hello. I didn't hear you come in." He looked at Silas' face. "You must be Mr. Silas' son." Chris had never met the man and he didn't react to the proffered hand. It always took him a while to remember he looked so much like his father that even with thirty-five years between them, people could pinpoint exact blood-ties in one try.

"Yes."

"I am Tom Brigham." Tom moved to block Silas' view of his father. "I'm afraid you'll have to come with me until your dad is sedated, sir."

"Why?"

"He's having a bad day. Dementia can be very unpredictable in this stage. May I show you to our waiting room for family members?" Tom Brigham was a bulldozer moving towards the door taking everyone in his path down with him.

"Stop that." Chris moved out of the bulldozer's way. "Why is my father tied down?" The word father stuck to the inside of his cheek.

"He's having a bad day. I really must insist you come with me to the waiting room sir. We cannot be responsible for any injury to your person while he is in this altered state." Silas looked at what was left of his father. He was visibly older, thinner, and haggard.

"Stop talking like he's not here," he ordered without stopping to think who he was defending or why. "Get out. Leave him alone."

"Sir, please, I cannot leave you alone with your father, it takes three men just to shave him!"

"Don't call me sir goddamnit I work for a living!" He picked up the phone on the console between the two beds and dialed Dean's number. "Get out of here unless you want to explain to my lawyer why you have someone who can't consent on medication and restraints." Dean picked up on his side. "Here you go." He held out the handset. Tom sighed, wrung his hands and motioned for the underlings to follow him out of the room.

"He just hates safety razors," Chris said in a little, childish voice once he was alone.

His father's head was pointed in his direction but the eyes couldn't focus for more than a second. He stood at an arm's length counting his own version of Lamaze breaths until he worked up the courage to look beyond the bedspread at the man on it. He'd never known Christopher Silas Senior before he was a First Sergeant in Vietnam. He'd grown up with the crazy man who drank all day sitting in a foxhole he dug in the back yard and woke up at night screaming in Vietnamese and pulled a field knife on anyone who came too close for comfort. The charming, easygoing Christopher his mother cried for whenever the one returned to her by the Army –crazy and two thirds of a leg short a whole man beat her with his crutches had never been more than an urban legend in his house.

Pity trumped fear after a minute and he rummaged through the top drawer for the shaving kit he'd loved to play with as a child. He turned it over on the table and lined up the contents, a leather strop, the straight razor, a can of soap shavings, a badger hair brush. He hung the strop from the comatose roommate's IV, flipped the razor open and began the meticulous process of sharpening the blade.

"How would you like a close shave today First Sergeant?" Silas Senior focused his wandering stare on his son. There was no recognition in his eyes.

Chris lathered the brush in the bathroom sink and covered his father's face and neck in white suds blinking back a surge of grief that didn't make any sense in his mind. The first sweep upwards against the grain was unsteady and he bent over the gaunt face for better angling. He shaved up then down and rotated the razor's handle to keep it out of the way while he tackled the right side of Silas Sr.'s neck. He went back to the strop for three more licks of the blade and finished the face.

"Who are you?" Silas Sr. asked baffled. Chris held up a hand mirror he'd found in the bathroom.

"I'm new here First Sergeant; just started work today."

"But," he didn't finish the thought. "Do you know me? You don't call me sir like the others."

"That's for college boys who don't work for a living Sergeant," Silas managed through a mouth that felt like cotton.

"You remind me of my son."

"Really, where is he?"

"Well, it's Monday so he's in school. That Jesuit place, best central defender in his team." It was Thursday. He'd gone to public school. Silas Senior had never signed the permission slip to let him play soccer. Chris splashed some of the comatose roommate's aftershave on his father's face. He took the brush and the razor into the bathroom and rinsed them a lot longer than there was soap.

"Orderly, I want you to remove these." The restraints rattled. "I need to go to the toilet."

Chris saw the change in his father's eyes, the one he'd come to recognize instantly when he was growing up and finished packing the shaving kit with shaky fingers, ashamed to be scared of the wretch in front of him though he was now 31. There was mercury then brief recognition in brown eyes that mirrored his and the old man melted into a screaming banshee. Silas blocked out the insults and the rattle of restraints on the railings. He stood in the hallway by the open door for several minutes while Tom Brigham and his posse scrambled to get Silas Senior under control. Nurse Crawford was gone from her station and he thanked God for the small miracle of privacy in the time he needed to get his bearings and let his heartbeat catch up to his calendar age.

The three nurses who gathered around Willie in the CCTV room a half hour later were not interested in Willie. No one was interested in Willie; in fact Willie was hoping to get tapped for the sequel to _The 40 Year Old Virgin_. Carla, Gina and Cherisse were ogling the two screens trained on the nursing home lobby where Staff Sergeant Christopher Silas was currently pacing the length of the hall sipping vending machine coffee and staring at the public telephones. Don Quixote and the windmills had started the trend.

"Who _is_ that gorgeous man?" Cherisse elbowed Willie out of her way.

"Came to see Son Tay Joe," Gina replied using the Bethlehem staff's nickname for Chris' father.

"Ugh that nasty old dog. He bit Jen's finger clear to the bone!"

"Tom had to put him under with Haldol."

"Oh shush honey who cares? Just look at that ass." Gina's biological clock was louder than Big Ben in the tiny room. She zoomed in on Silas until his face took up most of the frame and panned the camera to look him up and down. Willie slapped her hands off the controls.

"I'm gonna get fire if he complain Gina."

He didn't. There could have been a marching band of albino dwarves jumping on tambourines and Silas' attention wouldn't have wavered from the phone. He had been fourteen the night his father was committed for shooting Dean's dog. It'd taken him fourteen years to go off the deep end one day at a time and now, Silas couldn't help but wonder how close he was to that point of no return. He didn't know as he dialed that scary, worsening symptoms he'd experienced in the past couple of months fit the psychological mutt of the armed forces to a T. He didn't know any of the statistics on the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He didn't think of a trigger as more than the useful little doohickey needed to fire an M4. He was going to hang up when someone picked up.

"Brooklyn _Veterans_ Center, no, we don't do flea dips, how may I help you?"

"Hi, good morning, may I…"

"Hold on a second honey let me get this door closed." He heard the handset being placed on an unidentified flat surface and clicking heels walking away. A heavy door screeched as it closed and the voice was with him again, clear, strong, sincere, a lifeline.

"May I speak with Angela Cruz?"

"This is she." Chris relaxed slightly. He loosened his grip on the phone. It wasn't another Nurse Crawford. Was Angela Cruz really all right?

"My friend gave me your card yesterday." He took a deep breath. "I'd like to make an appointment."

"I think I know the leprechaun in question." On his end, Silas laughed. It was all nervous energy. "How's 1300?" The voice asked.

"Today?"

"My lunch hour, if you don't mind a sidewalk hotdog listening in."

"Okay."

"Do you know Cecilia's on Concord and Bridge? You can't miss it; Cecilia is always standing outside in a red muumuu. We can meet there, go for a walk."

He switched ears unsure of what to say next but held on, answering Angela's questions, at ease with words he wasn't usually able to find. For the first time in two years as he walked out of Bedlam, he felt as if the snowball might just have a chance. He reached in his pocket to put away her card and chuckled at the note Dean had scribbled on the flipside. _I'm not kidding about the tres leches man_. He saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye and lengthened his stride to hail the incoming cab. He wanted to skip.

* * *

Ze Finis a'ight!

Now, Sgt. Hotness erm SSgt. Scream can go back to I-raq to kick insurgent booty. Apologies if last minute revelations seemed forthcoming but I wanted to wind this down in a subdued note; in fact my editor's parting words were: "What? No histrionics?"

Thy Author.


End file.
